01:920:101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: The Sociological Imagination, Social Class, Microsociology
14 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Promise of sociology: the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. - c. wright mills, private troubles. Transcend local environments; institutional makeup of society. Sociology"s object: stresses collective in uences on thought and behavior. Nation states: political entities that have multiple communities. The sociological perspective is more like a demon that possesses one, that drives one compellingly, again and again, to the questions that are its own. Social structure: patterned relations and positions that endure beyond isolated situations. Culture: set of symbols, values, expectations that de ne social reality. Sociology"s method: observation: data sources: surveys, history, census, watching & participating. Sociology & science: inferences & truths conditional, not absolute, generalization. The problem of obviousness: everyone knows that. , 2. Why bad teachers: all theories are incomplete. Norm - informal rule that we internalize that shapes thoughts and behavior.
